Amongst a group of fellow veterans, at a Memorial Day cookout yesterday, I did a toast to Jair de Jesus Garcia. For those of you who didn't know him, he was a Riot Squad member who died while serving his country in the US Army in Afghanistan, and got blown up by an IED.

There's some chatter going on other places on the innernets about whether or not Memorial Day should be celebrated or should be a somber day in respect of those who died. I don't know for sure, but I think that Jair would have said that Memorial Day should be a celebration.

Why?

Because he wrote down that if he got killed in combat, he wanted to be shot out of a cannon in to his grave with the Black Eyed Peas playing.

There is call to both celebrate and be somber on this day and both should be done.

I never had difficulty understanding why we keep a day aside for this and what to do on it.

My father and I spent Sunday and Monday of Memorial Day weekend in the 6 years I lived in Hawaii as a kid, which were the years shortly after pops returned from combat in Vietnam, visiting Punchbowl National Cemetery to lay small wreaths and post small US flags at the headstones of as many of those who gave all as we could. In those days, there was still a freshness to some of the earth around the graves dug for those who had relatively recently died in Vietnam.

That weekend Saturday, we nearly always barbecued and went to the movies on Memorial Day to celebrate, as well. I was young, but I recall a fair few Primo beers being opened and dispatched by pops as steaks and burgers grilled.

What absolutely should not be done is take for granted the peace and prosperity men like Jair paid for with their lives so we can watch the races and hang out at the beach and watch stupid movies at the mall on a 3 day weekend.

This is a photo of what Punchbowl looks like on Memorial Day, though this is not my picture.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.-H. L. Mencken----------------------The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which "unskilled people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it." The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average.